


I could get used to having you around

by heavensfallingaroundus



Series: don't you hear me howling, babe? [2]
Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF, Game of Thrones RPF, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF, The Eternals RPF
Genre: Bants, Caring, Established Relationship, Filming, M/M, Scotland, Thrones memories, sappy boyfriends, so much love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:08:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22793758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavensfallingaroundus/pseuds/heavensfallingaroundus
Summary: Working, bantering, and falling back into the easiest routine of all: being in love.
Relationships: Kit Harington/Richard Madden
Series: don't you hear me howling, babe? [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1631494
Comments: 28
Kudos: 41





	I could get used to having you around

**Author's Note:**

> Right. Well, what can I say, we're back.  
> This sequel was inspired by, in no particular order: the huge amounts of screaming I did in January, when pap pics from the Eternals set surfaced on the net; Richard's shoot for Calvin Klein, which happened back in October and which we're all still awaiting a tad too eagerly; Richard not showing up at the BAFTAs and breaking all our hearts (and Taron's); my misty-hilled muse, Scotland.  
> I hope you lovely people enjoy this one as well.
> 
> P.S.: this piece is entirely unbetaed, so if it sucks, it's entirely my fault. Be gentle, pls. Love youuuuu

_**January 6, 2020** _

Just off a plane from LA and away from the champagne glitz of the Golden Globes—he went there to see someone else win an award he was nominated for, and there’s no way in the _world_ he’s going back in two weeks for the SAG Awards, thank you very much—Kit’s phone starts buzzing uncontrollably.

Three voice messages, _fourteen_ SMS, five e-mails and, when he gets home, an actual fucking _letter_ in his actual fucking mailbox informing him that he and the _Eternals_ gang will be filming on location in London for ten consecutive nights, starting next week on Thursday. It’s unusual that he would get the same piece of information via so many different outlets—but then it is a Monday afternoon in the middle of filming a colossal movie for bloody _Disney_ , so it feels like the whole _extra_ element of it is, what, justified? Maybe. Maybe it is.

Later in the day, right as he’s starting to sip on his third cup of coffee—it’s a stupid hour for caffeine, but his sleeping schedule is absolutely wrecked and he needs to stay up, so what the hell—his phone does the thing again. The annoying vibrating thing. This time, though, when he looks down at it, he can’t help but smile.

“Hello, you.”

“Welcome home, Snow,” Richard’s voice greets him. He sounds raucous, a bit tired, but also like he’s grinning as he says the nickname.

“Ta,” Kit replies, picking his mug back up and moving out of the kitchen into the living room. “Where are you, my darling? Was hoping I’d find you here?”

“Waiting like a good housewife? Yeah, understandable, really—but no can’t do, sweetheart, got tae work, ‘aven’t I?”

“Thought you were off today?”

“Yeah, this was a last-minute re-shoot on some of the CK stuff. They called me, like, two days ago and begged me to come in, that they really needed me, and they knew that I’m super busy and blah blah blah but please won’t I give them just one more day. I thought the bloke on the phone was going to cry, at some point.”

“Gosh, Stark. _So hot right now_.”

Richard scoffs. “Ugh, I know, right. Anyway, good news is the thing is apparently due to come out any minute now. I think?”

“Which means, what? Next week? A month from now? In six months?”

“Honestly, Christopher, fuck knows by this point. I’m just taking the extra ten grand and shutting my gob. And maybe buying you something nice with it, if you like.”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Kit replies, appreciatively, as he plops down on the couch and rests his mug on the coffee table. “So, does that mean you’re freezing your denim-clad arse off somewhere in the most God-forsaken depths of Cumbria, or…?”

“As appealing as it sounds, it’s a hard pass on that, sir,” Richard replies, chuckling down the line. “Nae, been in London. We closed off the Southbank Centre again—‘cos that’s fun, apparently? And now I’m actually in the back of a cab, wondering what Your Grace would like for dinner—since I’ve been staring blankly at the Uber Eats app for a good while, now, and I cannae seem to decide what I want to eat.”

“I’m okay with anything, really, but… Curry? Or maybe burgers?”

“Hmmm,” Richard ponders out loud, “yeah, alright, burgers it is. Byron or Honest?”

“Seriously, Richard, do you _really_ need an answer to that one?”

“To be fair, I don’. Jist thought I’d check.” A brief pause, followed by the sound of tapping. “Okay, that’s done. If I’m not there when the food arrives, please be nice to the delivery person—and, darling, do take a selfie with them if they ask. I know how grumpy you get, when you’re jet-lagged. See you in a tick, my love.”

Kit rolls his eyes. Richard absolutely has a point.

“Fuck off, _my love_ , and see you soon. I love you,” he adds, as an afterthought. And because it’s true.

“I love you too, light of my life,” Richard replies, sardonic, sincere.

***

_**January 24, 2020** _

“So, are ye having war flashbacks already, or are you okay?” Richard asks him one morning, a week and a half later, at around 6AM, when they wrap and finally get to go home for the n… _day_. They go home for the day. Days are nights and nights are days and—

“ _Yes_ , yes I bloody am,” Kit replies, sighing out loud and burying his face in his hands in the back of the Mercedes that is driving them both home. “Having _Thrones_ PTSD, I mean,” he specifies, after a while—quite unnecessarily, given how dramatic he’s being.

“At least it’s not _fifty_ nights, this time, eh?” Richard says, reassuringly, squeezing his knee and locking eyes with him. Kit recognises the look instantly. It’s his _I really want to kiss you right now, but we’re in public, so I can’t_ look.

“At least it’s not fifty nights,” Kit agrees. _And at least I’ve got you_ , he almost says out loud.

They live relatively close to each other, a brisk fifteen-minute walk or a chill twenty on a slow day, but neither of them usually has the energy to attempt it after a night shoot. So, they do this weird thing where they ask Charles, their driver, to drop one or the other off first, and whoever stays in the car will subsequently get an urgent phone call one to two minutes later, or alternatively would have to stop to buy a pack of smokes or grab a Costa or whatever else their sleep-deprived brains can come up with, and with any of those excuses they’d get the car to stop again a few blocks away from the other’s place. Talk on the phone—to each other, but usually pretending it’s Pat or Debbie, and flexing the old thespian muscle as they feign worry and urgency—or run the errand, then tell Charles they’d rather walk, it’s not that far after all and there’s no-one around. On the third day, Kit gets an almost imperceptible but definitely unmistakeable wink alongside his customary _good day to you, sir_ , and starts wondering whether the man might be onto them.

He voices his thoughts some fifteen minutes later, when he’s lying in bed, naked as the day he was born, and Richard is busy kissing the inside of his thigh and prickling him with his beard.

“We’ll be fine, Snow. We’re always fine,” Richard replies, chuckling and nipping at him softly.

Kit’s fingers find Richard’s hair as the trail of kisses Richard’s leaving on the most sensitive spots on his body seems to be moving upwards and upwards, until Richard grabs both his thighs and hooks those ridiculous biceps underneath his hamstrings and just looks up at him, tired but awestruck, light dancing across his face from the half-closed blinds and catching the silver strands of his hair—

“Better than fine. _Perfect_. Fuck, you’re… you’re unreal, Rich.” _I wish you could see yourself. I wish you could see what I see._

Richard contracts his arms, digging into the back of Kit’s legs with hard, bulky muscle as he holds him fast, then does the thing with his mouth that makes Kit’s toes curl and his breath catch in his throat, stopping just as it’s starting to get unbearable. More kisses around Kit’s pelvis, up to his hipbones, abs, belly button, then the short hairs going from his navel to his crotch, that he traces with the tip of his tongue as he dips back down, breath ghosting over Kit’s cock, tongue following, down, down, down still, opening him up, licking and nibbling and humming and whispering sweet nothings until it’s too much, until Kit melts completely—until he needs to beg.

“Please, Richard, I need…” and Richard shifts up and covers him completely and stretches him out, and somehow every time is like the first. Like they haven’t been doing this for months, now, like they’re still re-discovering each other after all those years and tears and mistakes and longing—and it’s good, _so good, God, fuck_ —and it’s addictive, too. The serotonin high of being in love, and knowing you’re loved back.

***

Richard seems to take his superhero duties very damn seriously. He splits his nights more or less equally between _literally_ flying over Camden High Street and fussing over Kit on set, and then, back home, he spends his days taking care of Kit’s every need. Makes him breakfast, whips up Bloody Marys in the early PM—they embrace the weird schedule after a while, and they just roll with it—kisses him senseless, puts on music, fetches cigarettes, rolls the occasional spliff, tells him he’s beautiful. Sleeps very little, apparently. The amount of times Kit wakes up to find him turned on his side, a smitten look in his eyes, watching him through dark eyelashes and smiling like he’s looking at the most mesmerising spectacle ever. If Kit didn’t know any better, he’d say Richard is trying to make up for lost time. Apologise for something.

He has nothing to apologise for. They were too young, and that’s all there is to it. Too young, too inexperienced, both at the craft and at life in general— _especially_ life in general, one would argue. It was too soon to comprehend the enormity, the energy, the explosiveness, the sheer potential of the two of them together.

One late afternoon, when they’re getting into their respective costumes, he tells Richard.

“You know you’ve got nothing to be sorry for, right?” he says, finishing up lacing his boots and resting his elbows on his knees.

Their eyes meet in the mirror in front of which Richard is adjusting his coat collar. Richard quirks an eyebrow at him, a questioning look on his face. “What d’you mean?”

Kit gets up from the bed he was sitting on. “I mean, Rich,” he starts, approaching Richard and hugging him from behind. He can’t quite rest his head on Richard’s shoulder as he’d like to, but he tries his best. “I mean, we’re good. It’s all good. I have no regrets, and you shouldn’t either.”

Soon as the words are out of his mouth, he realises he’s not been any less cryptic—but Richard gets it, this time.

Richard’s right hand comes up to his chest and covers both of his, where they’re closed over Richard’s heart. “I do, though. I can’t help but think…”

“…that we wasted seven years?” Kit finishes for him, observing Richard’s expression change and Richard turning back into the vulnerable, slightly anxious teenager who lives underneath the all-powerful Ikaris. Richard bites his lip. Nods. Clutches Kit’s hands tighter.

“We didn’t, though,” Kit continues. “Everything we went through made us who we are today. We’re better because of it,” he concludes, eyes locked on Richard’s in the glass, his gaze solemn and serious.

Richard gently spins around and hugs him tight, slightly knocking the air out of his lungs as usual. They both chuckle into the embrace, then go back to looking at each other. Richard looks worried still. “Ye’ve got such a way with words, posh boy.” He’s smiling, but his eyes don’t follow. “And I know. I _know_ you’re right. I just… Sometimes I think about it, y’know? What could have been, where we’d be now.”

“Hey, we’re here now, aren’t we?” Kit says, grazing his knuckles over Richard’s stubbly cheek. Richard turns his head slightly and kisses his fingers softly, and finally his smile reaches his eyes.

“We’re here now,” Richard replies, in assent, leaning in for a kiss.

As seems to be routine, these days, they get lost in it—lips and tongues and teeth and humming happily against each other, forgetting themselves and their imminent set time for a while. Richard doesn’t stop kissing him as he backs him up against the bedroom wall, and suddenly Kit’s trapped between a hard surface and a hard body, and he feels himself settling back into a well-known groove, completely and irreparably lost in Richard’s scent and the sound of Richard’s throaty groans and the kisses Richard leaves along his jawline, and, _fuck_ , he wants—

His phone starts vibrating loudly from the chest of drawers it’s rested on, and the spell is broken. Richard continues on his merry way for a couple more beats, making him groan in lust and frustration. “Rich, we… _mmh_ , we need to go. Y’need to get out of here, back to your place,” he says, without thinking how ridiculous that sounds. No way in seven hells Richard can make it back to his place, no matter how close it is. “Charles will… ask questions.”

“Bit too late for that, now, sweetheart,” Richard says, leaving a last kiss on his cheek before coming back up, booping his nose and swaying across the room to retrieve the phone. Then, Richard actually _picks up_ the phone. “Good evening, Charles. Ta. We’ll be right out,” he says, business-like, closing the call and handing the phone back to Kit.

“Wh… How… Why did _you_ … _My_ phone?” Kit tries and fails to formulate a coherent question.

“I trust him, he’s discreet,” Richard says, simply. “Plus, you were starting to get _obvious_.”

Kit furrows his brow. “Excuse me? So he _knows_?” A rhetorical question, really, since the look on Richard’s face speaks absolute volumes. “Nevermind, I don’t really need an answer to that. How _long_ has he known, exactly?”

Richard’s baby blues look up, as if a halo suddenly had popped out of nowhere and settled on top of his head. “Mh. Christmas? Your birthday? To be fair, I did send him on pretty obvious errands around that time.”

 _Un-fucking-believable_.

“May I ask, then,” Kit starts again, a pitch in his voice he doesn’t recognise. God, is he going… _camp_? “Why on _earth_ we’ve been playing the stupid errands-and-phone-calls game for the past _seven days_ , Richard?” He’s genuinely outraged, but also low-key feeling like he’s about to burst into a fit of giggles. He suspects he knows the answer to that question, too, and if he’s correct… well, _fuck Richard_ , really.

“Speak for yourself, I just ask him to drive around the block a couple of times and then drop me off directly in front of your flat in reasonable time.”

“You’re.” Kit punches Richard’s sturdy pecs once. Gently, but with purpose. “Absolutely.” Another punch. “Ridiculous.” Double fist, this time, as Richard is full-on shaking with laughter. “I hate you.”

“No, ye don’,” Richard replies, confidently, kissing him again. “C’mon, we’re gonna be late.”

“I _absolutely_ hate you,” Kit reiterates, a bit louder, as soon as his front door is locked behind him. He stills on top of the five steps down to the pavement and just looks down at Richard, who’s already next to the car and looking back up at him, grinning.

Richard holds a hand out, beckoning. “No, ye don’,” he repeats.

Kit can’t help but smile in turn as he walks down the steps and takes his hand. It’s safe, and it’s natural. He smiles, feeling surprisingly light.

“No, I don’t. I really, really don’t.”

***

_**February 1, 2020** _

“Come home with me,” Richard asks him on the Saturday morning they finally, _finally_ wrap. They’re in a trailer wiping off fake blood from their faces, and it’s just the two of them for the first time in eight-odd hours.

“Um, yeah? It was already the plan, anyways, right? We were at mine, last night.”

Richard shakes his head and moves closer. “I mean, Snow—come _home_ with me. Come to Glasgow. Let’s take a week off. No showbiz, no phones, no internet. Just the two of us.” He looks pensive for a second, then continues. “Alright, well, maybe just Ma and Da at lunch or dinner a couple of times.”

Kit is, well, pleasantly surprised. “Sounds like a dream,” he replies, “but don’t you have to be at the BAFTAs, tomorrow night?”

“Oh, sweetheart. I love them all to pieces, but I’ve also asked them to not bother me with awards and such this time round,” Richard says, almost too nonchalantly.

“And they just, what, said _yes, Richard, whatever you say, Richard_? Dexter and Paramount,” _and Taron_ , “and bloody _Elton John_? Y’have _that_ kind of power over people, huh?”

Richard discards his make-up wipe in a nearby bin and flips him the bird, then proceeds to scrunch up his nose in that involuntary expression of light disgust that crosses his face every time anyone praises him.

“Absolutely not. I just…”

“It’s fine, love. I know. You just want to put your feet up, get drunk and watch the rugby,” _and you don’t want to see Taron, you’ve successfully avoided him for the entirety of awards season and you’re not going to stop a winning streak—and that’s absolutely fine by me, by the way_ , “and I bet you want to _drive_ up to Glasgow, don’t you?”

Richard raises an eyebrow. “Oh, but you know me so well, young Catesby.” Ugh. Richard used his sixties-talk-show-host middle name, and it’s Kit’s turn to scrunch up his face in a similar fashion, now. “I was _just_ thinking of dusting off the old girl.”

“By _the old girl_ I’m assuming,” _and hoping to God above_ , “that you mean the E-Type and not the Triumph—because there’s absolutely no way this arse,” he stops for a beat, patting loudly on his left buttock, “is sitting on the back of that death machine for seven hours. In bloody February. I love you and I _will_ follow you until the end of the Earth—but, also no, thank you.” He gives Richard a sarcastic smile and an air kiss, and spins on his heels to retrieve his backpack. It’s lying on the floor, propped up against a chest of drawers that seems to be positively overflowing with make-up and wigs.

He hears Richard silently chuckle behind him, and he turns around just in time to see another make-up wipe fly across the small space and directly into the bin. Richard sits on a battered-looking wooden chair and just smiles at him, a childishly mischievous grin—like he’s just stolen chocolate from the pantry. Also, he does puppy eyes.

“Richard. No. Absolutely not. Otherwise the Highlands won’t be graced by my presence, I’m afraid. Yes to the Jag, no to the death machine? Hm?”

“Technically,” Richard says, getting up and closing the distance between them in a few steps, “it’s the _Lowlands_ ,” he finishes, whispering over Kit’s lips.

“ _Technically_ , Mr. Know-It-All,” Kit parrots him, holding Richard’s fierce and playful icy blue gaze, “you still need to answer my question. Car? Yes?”

Richard nods, kissing him and grinning broadly as he does so. “Yes, princess. Car it is.”

“Good boy,” Kit replies, pecking his lips once more and turning around to get out of the trailer.

Just as he’s out the door, he hears Richard mumble behind him. “We can always borrow Da’s Harley, anyways.”

***

_**February 4, 2020** _

It’s surprisingly sunny up in Scotland, so, after a couple of days, they do end up borrowing Dick Madden’s Harley. And walking shoes. And a big hiking backpack. And home-baked bread and a few pieces of incredibly smelly cheese and a bottle of red to put _inside_ the backpack. And, against Richard’s multiple protests, since he’s _been on this hike a thousand and a half times, Kit, honestly_ , a guide book on the Trossachs National Park and a map of the path up to Ben Vorlich. You know, just in case they get lost.

Richard shakes his head at Kit as he utters something in a language Kit doesn’t understand, and Kit preventively flips him off.

“Do you _really_ want to go to Stirling Castle, Kit?” Richard asks him, once they’re ready and he’s pushing the bike out of the garage.

“Yeah! I’ve never been, and it’s supposed to be…” wow, is he _really_ going to say it? “…fit for a king.” Pause for laughter, but Richard just scoffs and rolls his eyes. “If that’s not our place, I don’t know what is.”

“It’s just… everyone is still as obsessed as they ever were, Kit. We won’t be left alone for a sec. Especially if we show up _together_.”

Kit ponders that piece of information for a second, then runs his fingers over the soft fabric of the protective garment he’s holding in his right hand. Richard has brought a couple of _silk_ motorbike balaclavas with him from London—because of course he has.

“We could keep these on? And our hoods? It’s supposed to be windy, anyways,” he suggests. “Just a quick in and out? C’mon, Rich. Let us be tourists for once.”

Richard quirks an eyebrow at him as he inspects his own balaclava. It seems to have one of those spooky smiles drawn on it, all sharp teeth—with the occasional specks of red.

“And the creepiest fecking tourists those poor ticket office people will ever see, too,” Richard blurts, chuckling in earnest as he zips up his jacket. Fuck, he looks _good_ in biking gear. “Alright, alright, fine.” _Alreyt_. _Fayn_. He puts his scary balaclava on and he widens his eyes in what Kit assumes is supposed to be an impression of Heath Ledger’s Joker, then puts his helmet on. Kit shakes his head, puts on his own silk and helmet on, and tentatively approaches the bike.

“It won’t bite, Snow, I promise,” Richard’s soothing, muffled voice says. SFX blue eyes smile at him from underneath the helmet—sweet, endearing, excited. “Hop on, darling, and hold tight.”

It’s a freakishly windy ride from Elderslie to Stirling on the M80, but it’s also sunny and overall so fucking beautiful that Kit stops caring about the breeze and the cold after a while. He just clutches onto Richard for dear life, still managing to feel the sturdiness of his pecs and abs against his palms and the sheer definition of his back muscles against his front, even underneath all those layers and the leather—good God, the _leather_ —and he tries thinking of a time he might have been more attracted to this man, but fails miserably. Alright, maybe the fucking bike _does_ have its charm, after all.

Dick’s helmets have a microphone system, so they can talk during the ride. That means that Richard gets to play tour guide and explain what happened in this field or that during the Jacobite risings, going on and on and unleashing the brogue as he namedrops the Braveheart and also a few of _the bastard Sassenach_ through dramatically gritted teeth—the absolute Golden Globe winner. Of course, Kit knows everything there is to know about the Scottish rebellions—he’s a history book fiend, after all—but lets Richard bend his ear nonetheless, contently humming in assent as he keeps count of the words he doesn’t understand and laughs at his jokes. He’s just… happy, happy, _happy_. They both are. But then, that’s just how Richard gets, when he’s back in his beautiful green homeland. He can’t see Richard’s face right now, but he knows how much he’s glowing with delight.

As soon as they arrived at Richard’s parents’, Kit remembered. It all came flooding back, and it was as if no time had passed at all. That look in Richard’s eyes. That deep, singing brogue, thicker than ever. Those raspy rolled R’s, vibrating in the air between them. He experienced all that once before, when they did the _come home and meet the parents_ thing the first time round—what feels like a hundred years ago, now. Although, to be fair, it was not exactly in those terms. They weren’t really alone, back then—Alfie tagged along, too. A post-season-one-wrap-celebration, all-boys-homecoming trip.

Glasgow. Pubs. Clubs.

Spliffs, edibles and techno.

A three-day bender.

Kit doesn’t remember much, to be honest. Just a few details linger in his mind, quite impossible to erase.

The never-ending frolicking in public places, but especially at The Hunterian Museum at Glasgow University while high as motherfucking kites, talking way too loud, giggling inappropriately, pointing out sectioned human body parts and various dead animals suspended in formaldehyde and _ewww_ ing— very maturely.

The adrenaline rush of seeing the very first poster for _Thrones_ hanging on the Subway, and the subsequent selfies taken with it.

The taste of beer and cheap whisky from Sainsbury’s—bought with HBO money—and excellent single-malt—stolen from Dick and Pat Madden’s liquor cabinet. Which, to be honest, made it _that_ much better.

The knowledge that he was sleeping in Richard’s sister’s childhood bedroom, and that just a wall stood between him and Richard—and the thought of _Richard_ , keeping him up for the whole of the first night at Dick and Pat’s. Just the mere possibility that maybe, just maybe, Richard would…

The knock on the bedroom door, that second night, when Richard actually did come and see him. Richard’s lips on his, Richard’s weight on his body, his hands in Richard’s curls, Richard’s mouth around him. Then, Richard’s hand on his mouth, muffling his too-loud moans. How tight and warm the single bed got when Richard fell asleep next to him. How beautiful Richard looked.

The infinite butterflies in his stomach on the third night, as he walked up and down the corridor, wondering whether he should knock on Richard’s bedroom door. The soul-crushing longing for him, but also the fear of moving too fast and potentially fucking it all up. Then, the frantic beat of his heart when he saw the door open spontaneously and locked eyes with Richard, who was standing in the frame. How shamelessly undressed Richard was—wearing nothing but light grey boxers that could barely contain his very noticeable arousal. The _hunger_ in that blue gaze, when Richard held out a hand and invited him in. The concentration and the slight concern in those eyes when Richard laid him down, kissed him all over, and asked _is this okay?_ , before Kit nodded, _yes, yes, yes_. The feeling of those fingers, opening him up, making him squirm in desperation and anticipation. The husk in Richard’s voice when he rolled out a condom on himself, but still asked for permission for the umpteenth time, before—

The feeling of Richard thrusting in, slowly, slowly, slowly, whispering his name. The unspoken promise behind it— _I’ll take care of you._

Kit’s body adjusting to the new sensation, stretching and melting for Richard, until it didn’t hurt anymore. Until it was just pure, liquid pleasure rushing through his veins. Until the whole world disappeared, and it was just the two of them, making love for the very first time.

“…earth to Kit?” comes Richard’s voice, seemingly out of nowhere, resonating inside Kit’s helmet. “Are you alright, love?”

God. Richard has probably been talking to him, hasn’t he?

“Sorry, sorry, yes. I’m grand,” he reassures Richard, pressing himself closer to Richard’s back. “Just got a bit lost, there.”

“Oh? And what were ye thinking about?” _Aboot_.

As the road tightens and starts to get steeper, they drive past a statue of Rob Roy, standing proudly on a pile of rocks and brandishing a sword. Kit can _feel_ that Richard wants to drop some trivia about it, but he’s refraining from speaking—he still hasn’t gotten an answer.

“Oh, you know. Just… Stuff.”

“Stuff?” Richard sounds curious now. They continue to snake up the hill. The village is charming—exactly the kind of place where Kit would see himself live, if life was simpler.

“Sappy stuff,” Kit offers. “Us.” His heart still swells up at the collective pronoun, sometimes. This is one of those times.

“Reminiscing?”

“Maybe.” He tightens his grip around Richard’s middle, and somehow he knows Richard is smiling that big, lovestruck smile that lights up his face.

They finally get to the top of the hill, and Stirling Castle hits them with all its majesty. Light stone, thick walls, high towers. Sturdy, regal, impregnable. It looks almost exactly like—

“Welcome home, Snow,” Richard says, looking up at the fortress, once they’ve dismounted the bike and taken off their helmets. Only his eyes are visible from above the balaclava covering the better part of his face—and they’re joyful and full of love. “Winterfell awaits you.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it through this, thank you very much for sticking with me. I hope that wasn't *too* sappy.  
> If you want to chat, drop me a comment or find me on tumblr, I'm @applesfallingfromblondehair on there.  
> And stay tuned for a sequel some time in the future, I guess.  
> Love you all,  
> C xx


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